The Fruit of Christ: Change from the Root
You Must Be Born Again
3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Jesus’
reply to Nicodemus here drives into the root of evidence for those who profess
Christ: namely change, i.e. life-change originates at the core of a person as
if to begin anew. I admit to be a failure in this regard often, as we all are
because we are not yet perfected in our glorified bodies (Phil 1:6). The truth
of faith’s evidence, nonetheless, is found in what is seen externally.[1] The concept of being born
again was likely a startling remark to Nicodemus, as it would be to anyone
including those of us in modern society had we never heard such a phrase. Nicodemus,
in genuine concern, approaches Jesus as a teacher. To his (likely) shock, Jesus
says that being born again is required for seeing the kingdom of God. Such a
phrase is not literal in the physical sense but certainly in the spiritual
sense. It is figurative physically, for no one may reenter a mother’s womb for
rebirth; yet, spiritually (truly the real realm in which Christians operate),
one must be born again in Christ, i.e. the depth of change from Jesus occurs at
the root. One cannot see the kingdom of God with surface-level change;
life-change must include a severing of everything that remains of the old life
and a total restart of something new. Christ does not merely help people in
their old way of life but rather makes them a completely new creation (2 Cor
5:17). Being born again encompasses riddance of everything old, e.g. thinking,
ways of life, outlook, perspective, etc. Rebirth in Christ equates to total
newness. The paradox in this thought is that while believers are not yet
perfected, they are continuously being made new until the day of complete, i.e.
newness is a process. Believer, take heart that Christ is working on you and making
you new. You have been born again, the depth of change occurring at the root of
who you are.
[1]
This is not to say that external works are what saves someone or that one who
does not reveal external works is not saved, although the latter is indicative
of a heart not changed by Christ.
